Is Ketarin dying???

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

Years ago I ran into Ketarin, but didn't use it much. It's a great tool, but life is busy and I didn't pay much attention...

Now, I come back to it because I'm looking to download software that I use regularly and cannot find anything except Ketarin that does it correctly...but it looks like Ketarin is dying and fading away!

The last post to the forums was back in July. That's been four months! I'm really surprised Ketarin isn't more popular, because it is awesome software.

And the online database is gone, so that function no longer works. I'm busy trying to find a bunch of templates to build up my own database, but there's so little out there when this should be a super-popular utility.

If nothing else, we should have options for online databases, so that we could connect to different databases that people can maintain if they want, or even a method of searching multiple online databases.

Does anyone have a copy of the online database? There was one on here that someone put in a Dropbox, but it's long gone.

I'm just a bit sad about this.

[shawn]

Hi, @JohnBoyTheGreat

Ketarin is not dying but is mature. 

I can't speak for anyone else here, but my entire year until a couple weeks ago was just insanely busy (100+ hour work weeks with the Win10/Win11 crap). That's finally over so I have more time to play now.

The online database requires an extension for IPB that has to be changed after releases that's not always possible.

I agree that custom online databases would be great, but it kinda defeats the purpose of having a central repository. I'm sure @floele still has the current database. @floele do you have an estimate when the database will be operational again? If there's anything I can do just email me.

Meanwhile, I have over a thousand apps in my own database. What are you looking for, @JohnBoyTheGreat?

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

Hi @shawn,

Awesome that you have so many apps in your database!!! I'm looking for everything. I'm a bit...OCD. I like to download lots of things I never use, and plenty that I do. I've been a computer tech for the past 40 years, and I've found that you never know when something will come in handy but will be next to impossible to find if you haven't downloaded it and socked it away somewhere.

I'm still struggling with figuring out the details for making Ketarin work the way I want. I attempted to use ChatGPT to help, but that just made things much, much worse.

If you were willing to share it, I'd love everything you have. I love to collect things. I've been trying to find as many templates that work as possible, but there's really not a lot that is easy to find. Not everyone wants the same type of things as I do either...one collection I found was mostly portable versions, which is fine if that is all you want.

My thoughts regarding the custom online database in relation to a central repository is simply that if the central repository ever goes down (as it seems to be now), then other repositories could take up the slack. Also, other repositories might have selected software curated by people with a particular interest or goal. In fact, since Ketarin seems not to care if it is software, a repository could be setup for downloading anything of a particular interest to people, things that change regularly.

If Ketarin were setup to check the main repository (which would be the default setting, but could be changed if the main repository ever went down for good) and then scan any additional repositories, then people could create their own specialized repositories or a backup for the main one.

I'm just happy to hear that Ketarin isn't dead or dying. The downed repository and the crickets in the forums gave me the impression that a very good piece of software was no longer being maintained for lack of public interest, and that caused me a bit of concern. I realize it is a rather specialized kind of software mostly of interest to people like us, who are perhaps only a tiny portion of the population, but I would have thought there would be more people engaging daily and more templates and things like that.

Thank you so much for your response. It's encouraging to see Ketarin is still going fine...

[shawn]

Here's a link to a mostly-sanitized version of my database. I had to strip out some of my business logic and a bunch of apps that have licensing, logins and other details but it should give you a good head start. 

I do rely heavily on Kuppet. You should, too. It's awesome and easily the best supporting software for Ketarin. 

[shawn]

While the Ketarin online database is a massive and useful engine for individual apps and to build your own library from common shared sources, I do personally require my own repository which is that business logic I described in my message above. It's actually very simple to implement, though it does require on online presence. I publish all changes to all apps directly to my server so I can use them through my remote support service to check for and install updates. More about this in my response to your versions post.

 

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

On 11/9/2025 at 4:28 PM, shawn said:

Here's a link to a mostly-sanitized version of my database. I had to strip out some of my business logic and a bunch of apps that have licensing, logins and other details but it should give you a good head start. 

I do rely heavily on Kuppet. You should, too. It's awesome and easily the best supporting software for Ketarin. 

Thank you so much! This will help me get ahead on setting up my downloads. I find that digging through bunches of messages for templates that are outdated to be a bit frustrating. I'm working on some of my favorites--popular software and particularly useful software--to share on here.

But I do get distracted a lot and forget what I've been doing a lot (from a TBI), so if I didn't see your messages quickly enough, I apologize. This is absolutely great! I really appreciate it.

I'll check out Kuppet too. I heard of it, but I'm not quite clear what it does, except to help with Javascript rendered pages for Ketarin??? The post wasn't that clear about the purpose of Kuppet. I haven't got around to looking at it in detail...

You say Kuppet is the best supporting software for Ketarin... Is there other supporting software for Ketarin? That's the only one I've seen.

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

On 11/9/2025 at 5:40 PM, shawn said:

While the Ketarin online database is a massive and useful engine for individual apps and to build your own library from common shared sources, I do personally require my own repository which is that business logic I described in my message above. It's actually very simple to implement, though it does require on online presence. I publish all changes to all apps directly to my server so I can use them through my remote support service to check for and install updates. More about this in my response to your versions post.

 

So, could you explain the "business logic" a bit more? I'm interested in all the possible uses for Ketarin. I think it's a very useful piece of software.

You also mentioned apps that have licensing. I think that would be a great topic for a post, with some templates for licensed software minus the logins, passwords, keys, etc. which make them work, for all those who use the same licensed software.

[shawn]

13 hours ago, JohnBoyTheGreat said:

Is there other supporting software for Ketarin?

You can use any software you want, of course. 7-zip is probably the most popular, but I use aria2 and nircmd in a few of my scripts, and powershell for quite a few.

[shawn]

13 hours ago, JohnBoyTheGreat said:

So, could you explain the "business logic" a bit more?

I only use Ketarin on a couple of my own computers, never on client devices. I have custom scripts that consume information Ketarin publishes to my servers that do all the heavy lifting for managing my client devices. This allows me to control as much as possible myself and rely on as little outside crap as possible. My biggest complaint in this whole process are LibreOffice downloads when I cache a slow server URL and it takes hours to download an update on all my client devices that should only take a couple minutes. :/

 

The after-update command is your friend. Use it.

With Kuppet you'll want to fix the user-agent and user-agent versions - that after-update command does exactly that. Add it to your downloads for Chrome & Firefox and it'll essentially maintain itself so you don't get blocked by sites that don't allow HeadlessChrome or older versions of the browser.

An example of part of my after-update script parses the "todo" variable assigned to specific apps. Note specifically that it not only supports extraction (with and without paths), but diagnostics, uploading (through an external script), mega-get, copying it to my utility drive and more. The "real" version of this script adds aria2 and is over 250 lines. It also ensures that all my applications have the variables I care about created and assigned, even if they aren't in active use on that application yet. The uniformity makes it easier to fix later on and ensures that the POST data is consistent and manageable through the script.

The most important feature in my after-update command is that it uses a C# invoke-webrequest to POST the details of the new download to one of my servers. This data is then stored in a couple tables (current versions and archive versions) in a database where it can be consumed by my client-side version checking routines and presented in a pretty display for user consumption (almost exclusively by me and my business partner). The site also provides a slug URL form so that with a generic URL request to the site with the slug you can download any of the applications via a quick redirect from the vendor's website without having to waste my bandwidth or parse the download information again. 

For those important downloads where it may not be easy or reliable to download the file through one of my management scripts on a client device later on, it sanitizes the filename and uploads the binary to one of my servers so it has a stable download URL that I control. I far prefer to have client downloads from their devices (they're almost always remote) using the vendor's actual website and bandwidth, but that's not always possible. 

 

My global before-updating command (batch) is:

if "{version}"=="" if "{todo}"=="" echo ERROR /// {category:replace:&:^&} /// {spc} /// {appname:replace:&:^&} {version:replace:&:^&} /// {snotes:replace:&:^&} /// {schangelog:replace:&:^&} /// {swebsite:replace:&:^&}>> "Updates.txt"
if "{version}"=="\{version\}" echo ERROR /// {category:replace:&:^&} /// {spc} /// {appname:replace:&:^&} {version:replace:&:^&} /// {snotes:replace:&:^&} /// {schangelog:replace:&:^&} /// {swebsite:replace:&:^&}>> "Updates.txt"
if "{version}"==".0.0" exit 1
if "{version}"=="0.0" exit 1
if "{version}"=="" if "{todo}"=="" exit 1
if "{version}"=="" if "{todo}"=="\{todo\}" exit 1

This ensures that errors are quickly identified and stamped out. The "Updates.txt" file resides next to the Ketarin.exe and I just keep it open in N++ 24/7 so I can see errors immediately.

 

My global "when app update fails" command (C#) is:

#### Parse cached variable values
$sname     = $($App.Name);

Try{
	$serror = $($AppError.Message);
}
Catch{
	$serror = '';
}

Try{
	$sfilename = $($App.CurrentLocation);
}
Catch{
	$sfilename = '';
}


Try{
	$sversion = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{version}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$sversion = '';
}
	if($sversion -eq "{version}"){$sversion = '';}
	echo 'sversion:'$sversion;


Try{
	$sslug = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{spc}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$sslug = '';
}
	if($sslug -eq "{spc}"){$sslug = '';}
	echo 'sslug:'$sslug;


Try{
	$scategory = $($App.Category);
}
Catch{
	$scategory = '';
}
	if($scategory -eq "{category}"){$scategory = '';}
	echo 'scategory:'$scategory;


Try{
	$swebsite = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{swebsite}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$swebsite = '';
}
	if($swebsite -eq "{swebsite}"){$swebsite = '';}
	echo 'swebsite:'$swebsite;


Try{
	$schangelog = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{schangelog}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$schangelog = '';
}
	if($schangelog -eq "{schangelog}"){$schangelog = '';}
	echo 'schangelog:'$schangelog;


Try{
	$sdownload = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{sdownload}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$sdownload = '';
}
	if($sdownload -eq "{sdownload}"){$sdownload = '';}
	echo 'sdownload:'$sdownload;


Try{
	$splatform = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{splatform}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$splatform = '';
}
	if($splatform -eq "{splatform}"){$splatform = '';}
	echo 'splatform:'$splatform;


Try{
	$sbits = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{sbits}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$sbits = '';
}
	if($sbits -eq "{sbits}"){$sbits = '';}
	echo 'sbits:'$sbits;


Try{
	$snotes = $app.variables.ReplaceAllInString("{snotes}", $sfiletime, $sfilename, $true);
}
Catch{
	$snotes = '';
}
	if($snotes -eq "{snotes}"){$snotes = '';}
	echo 'snotes:'$snotes;
####


#### Append current log details
Try{
    ( "`nERROR:`t$($scategory)`t$($sslug)`t$($sname)`t$($sversion)`t$($snotes)`t$($schangelog)`t$($swebsite)`t$($serror)"  | Out-File Updates.txt -Append -Encoding "UTF8" )
}
Catch{
    echo 'Can not write to Updates.txt';
    echo "`nERROR:`t$($scategory)`t$($sslug)`t$($sname)`t$($sversion)`t$($snotes)`t$($schangelog)`t$($swebsite)`t$($serror)";
}
####

And again, monitor that "Updates.txt" file like your life depends on it.

[Tomorrow]

On 11/4/2025 at 6:47 AM, shawn said:

Ketarin is not dying but is mature. 

Not really. He has a point:

Latest release (beta, not even stable) was over five years ago.

Online database has been broken for years. I dont even remember when it broke, but this too has gone unfixed for years.

Low activity in forums by both user and the developer.

 

While it's not dead, it's also not in development. Clearly. Otherwise there would have been something in the past five years.

At best it's on life support or hibernation. Not abandoned, but also not developed.

I still use it weekly and only occasionally fix something in specific app templates i have when something breaks.

But in terms of features Ketarin has fallen behind. Still 32bit, still lacks dark mode and major component of the functionality, especially for novice users - has been broken for years. Besides i would argue that with the advent of centralized repos for apps even windows itself now supports some of the functions Ketarin does.

For example UnigetUI is a great modern option to update installed apps. Windows has moved closer to Linux app repo system and is no longer limited to whatever installers you can download from a hundred different websites.